[An encounter with a deity]

The perennial cleft between the realms of mortals and divinity inhered the dimension of the astray, and Mako's life revolved on the seams that bonded the two worlds at the very edge of the crevice.

For all her life, she could see things that no one could, silhouettes that were not meant of this dimension lingering at the edge of her vision wherever she glanced. They had first emerged on the night of her fourth birthday, she had awoken to stare into the ashen face of a lady, eyes bloodshot and face contorted into a maniacal smile. Her screams sent her parents bursting into her room in the dead of the night, only to find her bawling about childish delusions.They discarded it as merely a "figment of children's imagination", and left her to fend for herself.

Desperate to confide in somebody, she turned to her teachers and friends, and needless to say, she learned the truth the hard way. Her unorthodox ability was not meant of this world.

Eventually, she adapted, like all humans do. She learned to ignore the white ghastly beings that wandered in the school corridors, to contain her flinch whenever one loomed behind her classmate, and most prominently, to not respond when one came up to bother her. There were the neutral spirits, and the bad ghosts; neutral ones the harmless souls that most frequently lingered around, and the bad ones that only appeared if one ran out of luck.

For all her life, she had managed to survive by avoiding the depraved souls, and also by keeping her mouth shut.

And today, just so it happened she slipped up.

Like, literally, slipped.

She had stayed back in school to study for the upcoming test. The library was one of the safest place she had been to. The otherworldly souls that made themselves comfortable there were all docile, seeking solace in the midst of the chaos of the spiritual realm just like her. The school bell pealed, signalling six when the school facilities began to shut down except for a certain few. Mako's head was already pounding with a migraine at the confusing chemistry question, so she had left the school in a disoriented state of mind.

On the way back home, she trekked past a river, her eyes adrift and admiring the sparkling waters in the tangerine evening lights when she slipped.

With a shriek, she tumbled down the steep grass slope, and just before she hit the flat ground of the river bank, her fingers dug into the dirt and she skidded to a stop. She sucked in a deep breath. What the hell just happened.

A soft cry below her caught her attention. As she peered down, there was a young boy, sitting by the river near the tunnel. He had curled into himself and was shaking as sobs wracked his body.

Perhaps it was because her brain was already groggy, but she couldn't put her finger on why something seemed amiss, and all she could think of was the safety of the child. Cautiously, she climbed down to the banks and approached the boy.

"Hey, kid. What's wrong?" She queried. The boy peered at her with tearful eyes, and Mako felt her heart wrench with compassion.

The boy pointed a finger into the river. "I-I dropped my mother's ring into the river," he replied in a quivering voice. "I p-promised to return it, but now I-I can't. She's going to beat me!" He burst into tears once more. Slightly frantic, she consoled him: "A-Ah, please don't cry, I can help you look for it."

The boy once again lifted his head up, round black eyes twinkling with relief and glee. "Are you... serious, Big Sis? You can help me?" Mako nodded and flashed him a heartening smile. "Yeah, just leave it to me!"

She failed to notice the unusual pallor shade of his skin, and that whilst the sinking sun left a patch of shadow behind her, the boy had non.

She set her bag aside and got to her feet while she undid her shoes. With her back turned, she threw a question behind: "Where did you last see it?"

"Here."

A force no mere child could possess shoved her from behind. Her world tilted, and she splashed into the muddy waters.

Water gushed in through her nose, and her ears were deafened by the sudden change in pressure. In a turbulent of bubbles, she struggled and broke the surface, half-gasping. The boy stood at the side, witnessing everything unfold with a grin.

"Thank you for helping me, Big Sis. Now Mama won't be mad at me."

In a split second, everything clicked into place. He was a Depraved.

Black, thin arms rose from the water around her. They latched onto her arm and yanked. Mako barely had time to take another breath before she sank into the water once again. Panic seized all rational thinking, and all she could do was desperately struggle against the strong grip yielding her to the very bottom. She glanced downwards at her attacker. Only a head with eyes that screamed insanity and a large mouth, stretched all the way to the corners of her eyes, greeted her with mock joy.

Shit, shit, shit, I screwed up I'm going to die-

Everything happened in a instant. All Mako saw next was a burst of light that struck the water, and the river exploded. She was thrown into the air, and through her spinning vision she saw a figure floating in the sky, one hand outstretched.

She crash-landed on the shore. Her whole body was paralysed in numbing pain, from the landing impact or something else, she wasn't clear. She wheezed and coughed, achingly turning on her sides to spit the disgusting water out. When she looked up, she noticed the little boy, now staring at the sky with wide eyes. She realised he was trembling. She followed his line of vision to watch a surreal display unfold.

The ugly creature that (nearly) dragged her to her demise leaped out of the water, jaws stretched open into a snarl at the man that stood unmoving. Just before the creature's fangs snapped his head, he thrusted a small spear deep into its mouth. It's body convulsed, electricity crackling all over, before it burst into blinding light with an unearthly screech.

When the colours returned to the world, Mako blinked furiously, black spots dancing in her vision and vertigo taking over her senses. She hadn't realise the little boy had also vanished, until a pair of bare feet entered her bleary vision.

"You have my ring," the deep voice boomed. It shook her to the very core, and she found herself overwhelmed in unreasonable fear that threatened her body to cower in submission. Then only she realised the item within her clenched palm.

She quickly offered it to the being without raising her head. She felt the weight of the jewellery leave her palms. There was tensed silence, before a grunt of approval escaped the being's lips.

"Not bad, mortal. Not many have been able to move under my presence," was his brief comment, before a spike of pain on the back of her hand made her flinch and drop to the ground in a sitting position. She snapped her head upwards to express her displease, only to realise all that was left was empty air, and on the back of her hand a red word was engraved.

「雷」

♤[8/5/2020]♤

Believe me i wanted to go further, but i'm already late so *coughcough*

Anyone already shippin' mako and the dude? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (don't mind me i'm just drunk rn (∩´∀｀)∩)

Translations: 雷 stands for lightning or "rai" in japanese, where  in this case means God of Lightning/thunder/storms.

:)